by Edouard Kayihura and Kerry Zukus

“Hotel Rwanda was promoted as a story about the ‘quiet heroism of one
man, Paul Rusesabagina, during the Rwandan Genocide.’ I knew Paul
Rusesabagina. All the people who survived inside the hotel… knew Paul
Rusesabagina.

No one among us has ever thought of him as altruistic, let alone heroic. On
the contrary, of all the people who were within the hotel during the
genocide, he would quite possibly be considered the furthest from a hero…

Rusesabagina had been a war profiteer, a friend to the architects of the
genocide, a man willing to starve those without money while hoarding
piles of food, drink and riches for himself.” —Excerpted from the
Introduction

In 2004, the film Hotel Rwanda received widespread acclaim for its
heartrending account of how one man had singlehandedly shielded over a
thousand Tutsi refugees from certain death during the Rwandan Genocide by
hiding them in the hotel he managed.
Don Cheadle earned an Academy Award
nomination for his powerful portrayal of Paul Rusesabagina, an apparent
modern-day saint suddenly mentioned in the same breath as Oskar Schindler,
the German factory owner who had saved so many Jews from the Holocaust
during World War II.

Rusesabagina was subsequently celebrated by Amnesty International and
other organizations as he embarked on a world tour during which he collected
countless prizes and honorary degrees, including the Wallenberg Medal, the
National Civil Rights Museum Freedom Award and the Presidential Medal of
Freedom, to name a few. And, to this day, he’s remained in demand as a
revered icon and inspirational speaker sought to recount his uplifting tale
of unparalleled bravery in the face of ethnic cleansing.

What a difference a decade makes! Over the intervening years, telltale
cracks gradually appeared in the image Rusesabagina had so carefully
cultivated with the help of Hollywood and the human rights community. Those
swirling rumors came out into the open when Rwandan President Kagame
referred to the supposed paragon of virtue as a total fraud.

Now, Hotel Rwanda survivor Edouard Kayihura has collaborated with journalist
Kerry Zukus to set the record straight once and for all. Their book, Inside
the Hotel Rwanda: The Surprising True Story…and Why It Matters Today
painstakingly deconstructs Rusesabagina’s self-serving myth about what
transpired.

Truth be told, he was never a hero but rather a Hutu sympathizer and war
profiteer who had extorted money from the frightened folks seeking refuge on
the grounds of his hotel. According to Kayihura, “He treated… us as his
personal cash register… Refugees were refused entrance unless they could pay
him.”

Furthermore, “The hotel was protected by UN peacekeepers and any attempt
to kill was aborted by them… Paul Rusesabagina had absolutely nothing to do
with any of this.“ Kayihura‘s damning assertions are supported by the
recollections of many of his fellow countrymen who had sought refuge at the
hotel for the duration of the bloody conflict.

Assuming this eye-opening opus is accurate, a debt of gratitude is owed
Kayihura and Zukus for belatedly exposing a very slippery character as a
shameless charlatan.